A SOUTH AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 130, 19 October 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

A SOUTH AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

AS SEEN BY A NEW ZEALAKDKR. PANTOMIME OK TRAGEDY ? Writing to his parents in Dunedin, a young engineer describes in vivid and picturesque terms some of tlie scenes that were witnessed and participated in by himself during the recent revolution in Paraguay. His letter affords a startling insight into the conduct and methods of these sanguinary and ceaseless outbursts in South and Central America. The letter covers the time between April 20 and July 14:— Things are in such a chaotic state in this country that one finds it almost impossible to remember even a tithe of the impressions received in a single day, let alone describing, or even trying, this pantomime—a pantomime in which the stage is sometimes set for tragedy and sometimes for the cheapest melodrama; but the tout ensemble is pantomime, and it is funny, but the laughter of the happiest of the people has a tear close behind. But they soon forget, and when this affair is over some other fellow will take it into his head to become rich quick, and then—why, naturally, another revolution, and "the shoutings of the captains" will again be heard in the land. To give you any idea of the damage caused by this one would be impossible; but when I tell you that Gara, the revolutionist chief, has been now staying at Villa Rica for some three weeks with about a thousand men, and that he has completely reclothed and also fed them for that time, and that he has not spent a centavo, then you will understand that it does not take a very large amount of capital to go into the revolutionising business. Horror of horrors! I libel the man in calling him a revolutionist: he is a contra-revolutionist—a distinction in terms, nothing else.

It started last November—the Government in posse being the Colorados, or Reds; the Government in futuro being the Liberals, br Azures, or, plainly, the "Blues." The Blues declared a revolution and started a new Government in Villa Vilar* up the river, and eventually, in March of this year, captured Asuncion; the members of the Red regime fleeing to the Argentine, and Gara, who was deposed from the Dictatorship in February of last year, eame up and declared his famous "contra-revolution," which has for its object the restitution of himself to the lost Dictatorship. So it resolves itself into the problem of the three snakes which started to swallow each other by the tail. Gara has left the country almost destitute behind him; there is hardly a hoof in the camps. The number of animals they are killing here is shameful, inasmuch as they are only killing them for the skins. You see, the skins are worth nearly £2 each. He was selling these skins in Villa Rica to the merchants who deal in them. Well, he sold so many skins that they ran out of money (because there has been no communication with any outside part for three months), so Mr. Gara politely commandeered all the skins he had already sold and been paid for, besides the ones they had in stock previously, and shipped the lot off to the Argentine and sold them again! What do you think of that? And the motto of this fertile land of promise is "Paz y Justicia" ("Peace and Justice")! The railway is in the hands of Gara from Encarnacion to here, and well past here —some 12 kilometres, to the Rio Tebicuary, where there is a 350-metre bridge, which was destroyed by the Liberales on their way to Asuncion., From there onwards it is in the hands of the Liberales, the present Government. So far no decisive move has been made by either party. There has evidently been some slight attacks on the outposts, for yesterday four bullock carts arrived with a heap of mangled bodies and some wounded. By the way the bodies were mangled it looked as if they had got in the road of the Government artillery. This, I found later, was just what happened. All last night there was a heavy cannonading at the Tebicuary, about 12 kilometres away. We could hear it quite distinctly. Wt have heard, though how much of it is true I cannot even guess, that before the Colorados left Asuncion (or at least were driven from there) they burnt every letter in the post office; and as I haven't had a letter from home since a little after Christmas—and if the above is true it will be a long time yet before I do get one —you can imagine how anxious 1 am. They (Gara's party) were going to arrest Morgan and myself on the plea that we, being engineers, should be able to repair the bridge. We admitted the engineer part of it, and then convinced them we were neither bridge-builders nor yet laborers; so we got out of that little affair. Ido not know what the poor people will do this coming winter. The poverty even now is pretty bad, but God help them when the frosts come. All last year's crops of rice, bananas, sugarcane, maize, casava and cotton are still standing, and the planting season has passed over, because there are no men to glean or plant the plantations. The sugar mill at Tebicuary (a beautiful little plant) is idle and likely to remain so, for Gara has a large force there; in fact, it is now his main body. The owner is ruined; they have eaten over •200 of his working bullocks. Of course, here they have no railway to the mills (as in Fiji), hence the bullocks. Sugar is now selling in the market—what very little of it there still remains—at about 0s a pound; matches work out at about 2s Od a box. We are quite in a state of siege, as the Government forces have completely surrounded the town; so speed the day when they shall do something! It was funny for the first two months; but one yawns at the funniest play if it be too long, and they seem to have forgotten* such a thing as "curtain."

It is the poor soldiers (God save the mark!) that one becomes sorry for. Poor devils! Bare-footed, half-naked, unwashed, with clothes so sweat-sodden that even with slight bullet-wounds most of them die of gangrene, caused by the bullets driving pieces of their clothes into the wounds. Peaceable, quiet and inoffensive, with ho thought of revolutions, they are dragged from their miserable ranchos and formed into ranks, and drilled, drilled, drilled from before daylight till after dark—drilled not to shoot, but to do the German goose-step properly! The orders are given in Spanish, and as very few of them know aught but their native "Guarani" they become bewildered. Then my lord lieutenant rides up and beats them with the flat of a sabre till they become senseless. The hospital has in it more men suffering from the Hat of the sabre than from the neat little hole the bullet makes. You cannot imagine the piteousness ot it. Old, grey-bearded, tottering men who fought in the time of Lopez; young boys of 14, wide-eyed, grey-faced, and tremb-ling-lipped, tottering not with age but with fear-the unknown fear ot death and the known fear of brutality. Women —the sisters, mothers and wives of those in the ranks-run alongside, carrying on their heads pitiable little dainties for their loved ones; and above the clashins of the band one hears now and again -the dirge-like Indian funeral wail of some 'woman What matter? If she persists and it becomes annoying, the flat ot a sabre will make her forget. And as the train goes out the rank and file are ordered and kicked into shouting Viva!

A German officer fighting with Gara told me that the officers, unless they had a litre or so of cana in them, were "no vale"—only the pun works in Spanish. Yesterday was Independence Day, and on the 7th of this month (May) Gura left here to force his way to Asuncion, swearing before all the gods that on the loth (Independence Day) ho would sing the national hymn there or commit suicide. He got as far as a station on the line called Paraguaru, and there met his Waterloo. This was on«the 9th of the month, and yesterday he died. Sic semper tyraunis! As I am writing now I cannot give you any description of the misery there is—my writing is getting so full of Spanish idioms that I find it difficult at times to express myself in English. This I write not as "swank"—l believe this is the latest English word; the Spanish is better, "parada"—but because I find it easier to say in as few words as possible what I mean; so instead of "misery," etc., I should write "tanta miseria," and that would describe it. To go back to our subject. An unbelievable thing: there are yet in Paraguay people who still persist in believing that Gara is not yet dead; but most of these unbelievers were supporters of his, and to the present they, unbelieving of his death, talk of another revolution. Saneta simplicitas! The amount of unbelief in this world is about equal to' the dlstnteredness of one's friends. But you cannot even imagine the state of affairs in Paraguay; and winter is coming on, and these people are manana-stricken.